


and desire, stirring

by harulu



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harulu/pseuds/harulu
Summary: a drabble series.
Relationships: Akagi Ritsuko/Ibuki Maya
Comments: 1
Kudos: 55





	1. rain

**Author's Note:**

> I need you, you appear to me, not  
> often, however. I live essentially  
> in darkness. You are perhaps training me to be  
> responsive to the slightest brightening.
> 
> Glück, Louise. "Vespers," Poems 1962-2012.

It rains.

From the backseat, Ritsuko reviews the recent alterations of her manuscript, a short paper she authored late last year on sequence homologies developed in cases of artificial evolution. She adjusts her glasses, passing noncommittal glances between the last two pages and processing little. Suggestions on graph placement, criticisms on the strength of certain tertiary claims near the paper's conclusion, a few contradictory notes from two of the three referees. Tedious, though manageable.

Water hits hard against the windows, distorting the outside view through thick veils of heavy rainfall. Her driver approaches the station with steady caution, and Ritsuko, impatient, checks her watch on the underside of her wrist. An hour until the interviews, and she still has not reviewed the half dozen profiles sent to her last week. 

She leans back against the seat and inspects her cuticles, the wrinkle in her skirt, taps the plastic armrest to her right. Ritsuko wants a cigarette, a solid three hours of uninterrupted editing, and—perhaps the least feasible—an early night home.

"Here is fine." 

Her driver throws an uncertain glance over his shoulder, but pulls in, careful to avoid pedestrians. She tucks away her glasses and slides the manuscript into her bag.

Inside, the crowd folds into the turnstiles and fans out on the opposite side, tributaries of people rushing toward their prospective terminals. She stands beneath the extended eaves, rain splashing her ankles from the surrounding puddles, and rummages her bag, still distracted by the potential cigarette in her near future. 

She stops.

Pushing aside her manuscript, she digs around the loose items in her bag: an empty carton of cigarettes, a spritz bottle of face mist, old receipts, her phone. No wallet, which means—

Ritsuko turns, but her driver is long gone. She feels, if not panicked, then at the very least frustrated, and determined to manifest her train pass with sheer force of will. Leveraging the wall as support and balancing the bag on her knee, she sorts through her belongings once more, her wrist turned to watch the time. 

“Excuse me.”

The voice is quiet, girlish, and Ritsuko does not respond at first.

“Excuse me—” The woman repeats louder, and Ritsuko realizes the voice means her “—I thought—Or, well, I noticed—” The woman shifts her weight, choosing her words. Her hair is cut short, a handsome look that flatters her face, and she’s dressed well, in cropped trousers and carrying a navy blazer, the long sleeves of her shirt rolled past her elbows.

The woman exhales, then smiles and extends her hand, revealing a train pass. “I am sorry for bothering you, but you had seemed like you lost yours.”

“Oh.” Ritsuko hesitates, eyeing it then her, and reneges. “I can’t pay you back. I—” But Ritsuko sighs, relief flooding her body. “Thank you. This is very kind.” She looks at the card again. “I wish I could pay you back, but I left my wallet somewhere.” 

“If we see each other again, you can return it.” She adjusts her bag’s strap and gives one last smile, bright and sincere. “Have a good rest of your day.” 

Curiously, Ritsuko watches her walk away, an unconscious smile tugging the corner of her mouth. 

* * *

(When she sees that woman again, Ritsuko learns her name is Ibuki Maya, a twenty-three year old recent graduate, whose research sits at the intersection of computational biology, cloud informatics, and reconstructions of basic geometric figures, with a peripheral interest in non-Euclidean geometries. Ritsuko decides before the interview that she will be more than qualified, having been the only candidate to locate an easter egg error in the programming exam.

Adjusting her glasses, Ritsuko watches her, but Maya’s eyes only meet Ritsuko’s briefly before moving her gaze to the Deputy Commander and others.

Ritsuko looks over her curriculum vitae, the results of her exam, the impressions from the preliminary interviews. Ibuki Maya: polite, fastidious, charming.

“So, Maya,” begins a panelist from another branch. “Tell us about your interest in Nerv.”

Maya straightens her back, as if prepared. “Actually, when I was younger I had wanted to work with Gehirn,” she explains. “Then I did my Master’s thesis on Akagi Naoko’s…”

But Ritsuko is not listening. Maya had already gotten the job.) 


	2. ii.

In the lower hangar below Central Dogma, auxiliary power switches to primary—three clicks, a droning hum, and the full force of light shining the walkway like a stage. Maya stands behind Ritsuko, masking confusion with practiced confidence. Straight back, neat uniform, arms at her side. Maya betrays nothing.

From inside her coat pocket, Ritsuko clicks and unclicks a pen, her eyes falling to the shadow of the prototype asleep in its restraints. Around them hard metal clangs and echoes, and engineers chatter as they make the day's preparations. Here, underground, breathing recycled air and rust, Ritsuko has raised the only progeny she can claim.

The light settles to reveal fully what Ritsuko brings Maya to see: a colossus, human-shaped and submerged in a pool of LCL. From behind, Maya gasps—soft and girlish, an abandonment of pretense. She steps beside Ritsuko, gawking. 

“This is Evangelion,” Ritsuko says, her voice dull even to her own ears.

The prototype leers with dead eyes, its grafted skin sallow and stretched thin across artificial bones and muscle. Maya, Ritsuko knows, understands the gravity of the prototype, the time and skill devoted to its upbringing. They stand together, watching it watch them.

“Is it operational? Have you tested it?” Maya’s eyes move from face to shoulders, to the hand hanging limp near the prototype’s head. 

“To a point,” Ritsuko says. “There’s a harmonics test in the portfolio I gave you. Do you notice anything?”

Remembering herself, Maya fumbles for the portfolio, steadying it in her hands with difficulty. On one side she holds the calendar, and on the other the report, both cluttered with Ritsuko’s scrawl. Maya scans them once, then twice more.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Maya observes—to which Ritsuko hums an agreement. “And the pilot, too—Rei, is it?—It’s been months and she’s barely synchronized with the simulation body.” Her eyebrows furrow and she bites her lip, hunching her shoulders. “The pilot is only fourteen.” 

Maya releases a slow exhale, glancing from prototype to pilot profile, but avoiding Ritsuko. 

“Does her age bother you?”

“Doesn't it for you?”

She feels the intensity of Maya's incredulity, her sudden harshness. Ritsuko thinks of the Reis she has harvested, prior experiments challenging assumed thresholds—all done to see, or to prove a point. But Rei is a clone, a simulacra, a mirror of someone's stale yearning. To consider Rei, or her age, implies that Rei is human, and Ritsuko knows this is not the case. She wonders if Maya would agree, too, if she knew. 

“Like you said,” Ritsuko says slowly. “We have little time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> playlist 4 the writing of This Drabble is Kaval Sviri by the Bulgarian State Television Women's Choir and Kygo+Whitney Houston's remix of "Higher Love."


	3. homebrew

“I spoke with Kaji-san today,” Maya says, her voice casual. “He had some interesting college stories.” 

“Oh, I’m sure he did.” To her surprise, Ritsuko smiles and places her chin in the palm of her hand. “What sort of debauchery and excess did Ryo-chan share today?” 

Maya cedes momentary surprise—the familiarity, the amusement—but pushes through, suspecting she has been turned into an unwitting pawn of someone else’s playful torment. 

“Well,” she begins, and finds herself incapable of hiding her own smile, too. “He said that you were an enviable drinking partner; that you float as well as a concrete slab, and—” But she stops, suddenly embarrassed. 

“And?” Ritsuko coaxes. Her expression remains unperturbed. 

“He says that you would have failed your English classes without him, and that he wrote parts of your dissertation for the English committee, and that the committee knew but because—”

“But because I am an Akagi, they said nothing,” she finishes, and then laughs through her nose, short and breathy. Freeing her chin from her palm, she returns to making a few more notations. “He was generous for saying he only wrote part of the dissertation.” She does not look up, but a knowing smile plays her lips. 

“I might have modified his story,” she admits sheepishly.

Ritsuko hums. “Those stories are true, unfortunately,” she says. “The three of us were friends until we graduated.”

“Three?”

“Ryoji, Misato, and I.” 

This time Maya openly wears her surprise. “And you all ended up at Nerv?”

“Curious, isn’t it?” Ritsuko pauses. “Those two had a certain knack for creating unnecessary trouble. Still true today, I think.” 

Ritsuko’s tone is more serious, but she does not elaborate. Maya thinks she understands: Kaji has a devilish air to him, smarmy and charming in a way that prevents her from fully trusting him; meanwhile Katsuragi had always been disagreeable across the board. Loud, needy, hot-headed. She doesn’t say it, but she’s impressed the two managed to graduate at all, let alone land jobs at Nerv. 

“I’m not sure I can imagine you as someone’s drinking partner, Senpai. Especially his.” 

“I felt similarly, but his gift is an ability to grow on people like mold.”  She sighs in a nostalgic sort of way, as if remembering something she has since lost. “I’m much too busy now, although something about today’s work could tempt me.” Stretching in her seat, Ritsuko watches Maya with catlike eyes. “How about it?”

Maya stops typing, hearing the invitation belatedly. “Sure,” she says, and before she totally processes it, the two are walking side-by-side, Maya telling a drinking story from her own college days at Ritsuko’s behest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the prompt here is a mix of two things. first, me and qmisato have joked that ritsuko, absolutely brilliant scientist that she is, barely passed her advanced english lit class in undergrad, and relied heavily on kaji to fix her essays and prepare for finals. 
> 
> second, a CC asker mentioned that in a homebrew eva game, ritsuko+maya make an appearance and maya mouthpieces for ritsuko bc she can't speak english well. the prompt: "if that idea does anything for you," which it did.


End file.
